A few years later the court of the Lord j James would be no party to the policy which Mayor of London, which had long been j expressed itself in the great Home Rule closed against all legal practitioners save bill; he put aside the prize which he so the old city pleaders, who are said to have richly deserved, and Sir Farrer Herschell bought the exclusive right to audience with ascended the woolsack. One ingenious per in its walls, was thrown open to the whole son, whose name has escaped our memory profession. Westminster Hall then, like the and is not worth remembering, has the har High Court of Justice now, was crowded dihood to suggest that Sir Henry James with able but briefless barristers. Nothing refused the Chancellorship knowing that he loath, these young gentlemen turned their would not be re-elected Member of Parlia energies towards the Guildhall, where the ment for Bury. It may be sufficient to state Mayor's Court was held, and soon destroyed that the Lord Chancellor does not sit in the the monopoly of the city pleaders in fact, as House of Commons, and that no re-election the legislature had destroyed it in theory. was necessary. Most men will be disposed Foremost among the counsel whose early to accept the explanation of his conduct that reputation was made in the Mayor's Court, Sir Henry James gave in his speech against were Henry James and his old rival of Bel- the first reading of the Home Rule Bill. "I am aware," he said, " that it has now videre notoriety, Mr. Serjeant Parry. These two soon distanced all competition, and re- become a trite saying — every one says it appeared in Westminster Hall with clients — that we have come to a parting of the and briefs and money. In the old Court of ways, and must make our choice. So far as Exchequer there were two little pews situ I am concerned, there were two paths open ated one at either end of the front row of to me. There was one which offered many seats. The occupants of these pews were attractions for me. My old colleagues had called the Tubman and Postman respectively, gathered upon it; and although their language and were chosen by the Chief Baron from has somewhat changed since the days of the members of the bar who practised be our association, yet I think I would have recognized their voices, and it is possible fore him. These offices seem to have car ried with them at least latterly no duties, that a word or two of welcome may have and only one formal privilege, — the para fallen upon my ear. I should, too, have had mount right of pre-audience. But they were the privilege — to me the great privilege eagerly coveted as marks of distinction, and — of following, with, however, an unequal as a rule were conferred only on men whose step, a leader whose later triumphs, if I names were already honorably known in am not permitted to say I have shared, at the legal profession. In 1867 James was least I have been allowed to witness. But I had to look beyond these inducements. I appointed Postman in the Court of Ex had to look to what this path leads; and as chequer. Two years later he became a Queen's far as my erring perception goes, it leads to Counsel (June, 1869). In January, 1870, nothing except confusion and chaos, — he was made a Bencher by the Middle Tem ' Red ruin and the breaking up of laws.' ple. The Solicitor-Generalship, the honor of knighthood, and the Attorney-Generalship So, sir, I have turned to another path, dark awaited him in 1873. From 1880 till the and uncertain I admit, and rendered more fall of the Gladstone ministry in 1885, he difficult and dangerous by the acts of men was again the first law-officer of the Crown. who ought to have guarded it more carefully; In 1886 Mr. Gladstone came back to power, yet I declare that through the shadow that and offered the Lord Chancellorship to his envelops it, men who have venerated our trusty Attorney-General. Bui Sir Henry Constitution may trace landmarks sufficient
